His name: Francois Prost. One of his favorite subjects: tourists and campers! He gave us his images and this comment:
I started a few years ago to photograph tourists that were getting down from coaches in hot touristic spots of Paris. In this Serie called “Champs Élysées“, the tourists were “freezed“ in the doors frames of busses with flashes. Having this constraint crop and shooting with flash created strong colored images and added a “Paparazzi“ feeling to those very common scenes.
“Van Life“ uses the same receipe, but instead of being plunged into the universe of tourism and big camera lenses, we’re entering the world of caravans, plastic Birkenstocks and aperos.
Going often camping as a kid or today with my kids, I like the proximity between people that campsite creates, you live in very tiny spaces, you go brush your teeth in flip flop and you go wash your dishes in front of a person you will probably never meet again, it’s a bit like going to a music festival but with a different community.
Going often camping with my kids, I always liked those well established campers travelers that seemed very well organized and seemed also to live their best life in underpants during the summer holidays far from their daily routine. They seem to live and behave differently in campsite than in their normal life, and i like this second life thing where people are able to show something different than from the usual.
François Prost
François Prost is a parisian photographer, graphic designer and art director born in Lyon in 1980. When he’s not working for editorial or commercial clients, he spends his time on personal photography projects, documenting facades of local french nightclubs, machine gun shops in the US, chinese scooters, or similarities between european cities and their chinese replicas. His work has been awarded and published in international Press (BBC, CNN, National Geographic, M le Monde, Sunday Times Magazine) and printed in 3 monographic books (After Party in 2018 by Headbangers Publishing, Paris China by Hoxton Mini Press in 2020 and “Gentlemen’s Club“ in 2021 by Fisheye).
http://francoisprost.com/
@francoisprost
